Vancouver, Canada — Renaissance
Ingredients Inc. is pleased to release the results of an in-house,
laboratory-scale analysis of the efficacy of its acrylamide-reducing
(AR) baker’s yeast for applications in the global bread and baked goods
market. The company’s non-GMO AR baker’s yeast strains (Saccharomyces cerevisiae)
have been found to reduce acrylamide by up to 95% in a variety of food
products by degrading the precursor compound asparagine.

In
this test in both white and whole wheat bread and toast, the use of AR
baker’s yeast delivered an average reduction in acrylamide of 80%
relative to conventional baker’s yeast. This reduction was observed
in the bread prior to toasting, as well as across three degrees of
toasting (low, medium and high/dark). Importantly, no changes to the
bread-making or baking processes other than the use of AR yeast were
required in order to achieve these reductions.

“We are very
pleased with the performance of our AR yeast in bread and toast. These
results confirm the efficacy, simplicity and seamlessness of using
our AR yeast in all varieties of baked goods,” said Renaissance
Ingredients’ President, Dr. Matthew Dahabieh. “We are also exceptionally
pleased with the consistency exhibited by our AR yeast in reducing
acrylamide across all levels of toasting. In most cases, the acrylamide
content of toasted bread made with our AR yeast is less than that of
untoasted bread made with conventional baker’s yeast. Essentially, our
AR yeast eliminates the acrylamide potential of toasting
conventional bread.”

Highly elevated acrylamide levels in toasted bread

It
is well known that cooking at high temperatures significantly increases
the acrylamide content of food. For example, in Renaissance’s tests,
white bread baked with conventional yeast contained 30 parts per
billion (ppb) of acrylamide, while dark toast made from the same bread
increased the acrylamide content by 6.5 times to 195 ppb. In the
case of whole wheat bread, dark toast had higher acrylamide levels of
8.9 times (34 ppb in bread increases to 301 ppb in dark toast).
However, when produced with AR yeast, dark toast made from the white and
whole wheat bread (that contained just 5 ppb prior to toasting)
contained only 36 and65 ppb of acrylamide, respectively, after toasting.

“Our
studies show that common restaurant and consumer cooking practices can
result in highly elevated levels of acrylamide in toasted bread.
However, our data also show that AR yeast has the ability to
mitigate this ‘acrylamide potential’ in baked goods without any changes
to the cooking process. This greatly reduces the health risk that
acrylamide formed during cooking poses to end consumers,” added
Dahabieh. “We are now looking to work with collaborative partners at
the pilot and industrial scale to confirm and refine the efficacy of AR
yeast in these settings.”

Renaissance
Ingredients’ AR yeast strains are traditional baker’s yeast with an
accelerated natural ability to consume the amino acid asparagine, the
precursor to acrylamide. In baked goods in which yeast has always
been used as an ingredient, AR yeast can seamlessly replace conventional
baker’s yeast with no disruption to the baking process.
Importantly, AR yeast also can be used in foods in which yeast is not
normally an ingredient. Renaissance Ingredients has conducted
numerous successful studies on the feasibility of using AR yeast in
novel ways for foods containing yeast extract, chemically leavened
foods, or foods exposed to soaking steps during processing. These foods
include potato-based products such as potato chips and French fries,
savory snack foods, cereal products and coffee.

“Our in-house
studies highlight the versatility and efficacy of our AR yeast in
reducing acrylamide not only in baked goods and toast, but also in
potato products, snack foods, cereal products and coffee. We are now
looking to demonstrate this efficacy in pilot-scale trials by working
closely with additional interested industry partners,” adds
Dahabieh.

About acrylamide

Acrylamide is
a World Health Organization Group IIA carcinogen that has been shown to
be mutagenic and neurotoxic in a variety of laboratory animal studies.
In 2002, acrylamide was identified in a range of common foods,
including bread, toast, potato chips, fries, cereals and coffee.
Acrylamide is not added to food, but forms naturally from the amino
acid asparagine when foods are heated above 120 °C (e.g., during baking,
roasting or frying). The European Food Safety Association (EFSA)
recently announced its latest risk assessment on the continuing
widespread presence of acrylamide in various foods. This report is
one of many indicating that acrylamide is a concern to health agencies
worldwide, including the U.S. FDA, Health Canada, and others.

About Renaissance BioScience Corp. and Renaissance Ingredients Inc.

Renaissance
BioScience Corp., based in Vancouver, Canada, is a privately held
applied life sciences company that develops yeast-based platform
technologies to solve industrial and health problems in the food and
beverage industries. Renaissance Ingredients Inc., a wholly owned
subsidiary of Renaissance BioScience Corp., is responsible for
commercializing AR yeast for the global food manufacturing industry.